The fastening together of pieces such as two pieces of sheet metal used in a building has heretofore been accomplished primarily by the drilling of holes and use of the conventional bolt and nut fasteners. In a building the pieces may be, for example, wall panels, roof panels, frame panels or gussets connected at joints to frame panels between roof and side walls and also to roof trusses. A building using the rivet-type fasteners disclosed herein is described in a copending application entitled STRAIGHT WALL BUILDING AND METHOD AND APPARATUS FOR CONSTRUCTING.
Tuttle U.S. Pat. No. 1,176,793 and Klenk U.S. Pat. No. 3,261,073 disclose a clinching punch hand tool which has a die that perforates layers of sheet metal and clinches the layers together to form a rivet-type fastener.
Ashby U.S. Pat. No. 4,306,511 discloses a power-driven pierce and extrusion punch and pierce curl die that pierces a hole through two pieces and curls the punched portions back to effect a fastening (FIG. 1A).
La Barge U.S. Pat. Nos. 4,611,381 and 4,688,316 teach making hollow rivets in two pieces of malleable material using a punch die and forming interlocking flanges from the punched out portions of the two sheets.
Ueno U.S. Pat. No. 4,843,204 discloses an open-ended protruding piece in a first plate inserted into a hole in a second plate with a flange formed in the protruding edge to form a rivet-type fastener.